AN HELIOS Airways technician, who was the last person to have contact with the pilot of the doomed Helios Airway plane that crashed last year, yesterday told an investigative committee that he could not help the pilot because “the proper official to handle the situation had been on night-shift duty”.
The revelation came to light yesterday when technician Marios Frangiskos was called to make a witness statement in front of the investigative committee, headed by former Supreme Court Judge Panagiotis Kallis, tasked by the Cabinet to bring to justice any individuals found responsible for the crash of Helios Airways flight ZU 522.
On August 14 last year, the plane, destined for Athens and Prague, crashed into a mountainside in Grammatikos in Greece, killing all 121 passengers and crew on board.
Although the official cause of the crash has yet to be released, it is believed that a combination of decompression problems and pilot error caused the Boeing 737 to fly unpiloted for almost three hours before running out of fuel and crashing just north of Athens.
Yesterday, the committee heard statements from various witnesses, with some complaining of hectic work hours at the airline and others of problems with the plane on previous flights.
Addressing the committee yesterday, Frangiskos, the last person to have contact with the pilots before they passed out, said that just four minutes after takeoff, the German pilot, Hans Jurgen Mertin, had contacted him and told him, “Take-Off Configuration Warning”, before telling him that he awaited further instructions on what to do.
Frangiskos said he didn’t know what to do, because the appropriate official was not present and had been on night duty.
He added that he had tried to call the appropriate official on his mobile phone, but there was no answer. He called the plane back six minutes later, but there was no answer from the cockpit.
The committee also heard that Frangiskos couldn’t understand the German pilot and had requested the co-pilot so they could speak to each other in Greek.
Also called to give her testimony was stewardess Fanoula Savvidou who told the committee that the aircraft had experienced some problems during a flight to London just one day before the crash.
She had told committee members that ice had accumulated on the cabin door, adding that passengers had been complaining that they were cold, forcing the pilot to switch on the heating, adding that a funny noise could be heard during take off and landing.
Savvidou added she had often heard of complaints about the specific aircraft.
The committee then heard from the wife of the co-pilot, Sofia Charalambous, who claimed her husband Pambos Charalambous had his warnings of the aircraft problems waved away by airline officials.
She claimed to have been present when her husband had once reported some of the problems to Helios official George Kikkides. The official had allegedly told her husband that the airline would soon be replacing the problematic plane.
The co-pilot’s wife also noted how her husband had told her he was having communications problems with German pilot Hans Jurgen Mertin.
She also stated that the Mertin was a “bad character” who was confrontational, accusing the German pilot of “drinking too much”.
She then launched a scathing attack on former Helios director Demetris Pantazis, who she said was only interested in the profits, not the safety of the flights.
But a lawyer representing the airline dismissed her claims, arguing that the wife was bitter because the airline had not given her husband a promotion.
Another airline official, Chrystalla Asprou, told the committee that staff were under immense strain from their superiors and were being forced to work extensive hours without being paid overtime.
Asprou told the committee: “Mr Pantazis was very demanding and put pressure on employees to work extra hours without being given overtime. We would go to work at 9am and not know what time we would be finishing work.”
The investigations got under way yesterday for the first time in two months, after lawyers of the airline had objected to the investigations because they did not have a copy of the confidential report filed by Greek Air Accident Investigator Akrivos Tsolakis.
But the committee decided to restart its enquiry on statements that were not based on the Tsolakis report.
